Proper 23 - G - 2014 - The Wedding Feast Invite

Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost

October 12, 2014- Pastor Adam Moline
Isaiah 25:6-9      Philippians 4:4-13    Matthew 22:1-14

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  Amen.  Our text today is from the Gospel lesson just read, especially these words, “Many are called, but few are elect.”  Thus far our text. 

Dear friends in Christ.  How many wedding invitations have you received this summer?  Each one promising a night of fun and partying, the best of foods that catering can offer, beer poured into you mug until the tap is dry, and dancing and partying until early in the morning.  In our Gospel lesson that’s what Jesus says the Kingdom of heaven is like.  God has invited you, called you, to attend the wedding feast of his Son Jesus and his bride the church.  The biggest shindig of all.  There, is promised the finest of all meats, the best of wines.  The fatted calf has been slaughtered, the dinner is set!  “Come to the wedding feast!”  Everything is ready!  Everything is done!  And your name is on the invitation list.  Jesus has invited you to the meal.  Come to the party!  Come, eat, drink and be merry. 

No?  No you say?  You refuse to come to the party.  You have work to do, farms to tend, businesses to take care of.  People to see and places to go.  Excuses, excuses, excuses.  Saying no to God?  Is that what you do?  I don’t want to be with you, I don’t care about you, I don’t want to go to the party.  I have no time for God. 

You’re just like the people in our parable today.  At times too many things that are more important than spending time in God’s presence – no matter what joy that presence might bring.  There’s football games to watch, fish to catch, malls to visit, friends to talk to, places and times to sleep in.  And most importantly, we have jobs and activities outside of the feast that are more important. 

So we throw away the invitation.  We reject it.  We count it as foolhardy and worthless.  Because of our sin it is easy to disregard the Lord’s invitation.  Truly it is very easy to disregard the invitation.  Don’t believe me?  Look at your own life.  How easy is it to find some other activity to do than bible study?  How easy is it to get bored in church, and to decide to sleep in instead.  How easy is it to find another place to spend your money or to give your time.  After all there are business and farms, football games and naps to take care of. 

Dear friends repent!  God will bring people into his wedding feast, he will bring people in both good and bad whether its you or not.  You have the call.  You have the invitation.  And you even have the right wedding outfit.  Its there in our text.  All the people at the wedding are wearing their very best wedding clothes.  And you have been given those clothes dear friends.

Where?  In the waters of holy baptism.  There your sin was washed away.  There you were clothed with a righteousness that is not from you, but instead is from Christ.  You’ve been washed white in the blood of the lamb, even though your sins were as scarlet.  You are dressed and ready for the wedding, because it is Christ that you wear. 

For you see, in the end, the wedding feast, the invitation, the whole kitten caboodle is really not about you, your acceptance, your works at all.  Its about Jesus.  It is his party.  It is his wedding.  It is the party to celebrate the victory over sin, death and the power of the grave that Jesus won on the cross for you, and for me. 

God sent his servants out into all the corners of the globe to bring you in to the feast.  He brought you in with the power of his Holy Precious Word, proclaimed and heard by your ears.  That word is that great invitation proclaimed by pastors all over the world, and recorded for us in Holy scripture.  It calls you, and the call itself makes you a part of the feast. 

And at the feast there is the best of meat – the very body of Jesus, and the finest of wines, the very blood of Jesus.  Given and shed for you for the forgiveness of all yours sins of doubt, of avoidance and boredom in the church.  It is that feast that will sustain you throughout all of eternity, without end.  Amen. 

Dear friends, the call has come – Come to the feast – it is ready and waiting for Jesus has died and risen again.  We have victory in his name.  In this feast the vale that covered all people will be taken away, and we will rejoice with our God, even forever more.  You have been brought in by God’s working, both in the Word proclaimed, and the Sacraments administered.  You are God’s child, clothed and ready, only through Jesus. 

In the name of Jesus.  Amen.  

LWML Sunday - E - 2014 - Skubalon

LWML Sunday - Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost

October 5, 2014- Pastor Adam Moline

Isaiah 5:1-7     Philippians 3:4b-14     Matthew 21:33-46

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God the Father through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  Amen.  Our text today comes from the epistle lesson just read, especially these words, “I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ.”  Thus far our text. 

Dear friends in Christ, St. Paul writes today in a similar way as we so often do in our obituaries, bragging himself up as he says with his own words, “confident in his own flesh.”  He is confident that if it is possible to please God by actions that he has achieved it.  He states he is the best of the best in terms of holiness.  He is the Jew of all Jews, “circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee;  as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless as blameless can be. 

And yet the very next words are quite striking.  “And yet all of my righteousness of works and holiness of living, I count it all as rubbish.”  The word he uses is skubalon.  That word very piously, but wrongly translate as rubbish.  The real meaning is stronger, because the rubbish of which this word speaks is the kind we so often flush down the toilet – yes, Paul crassly calls his holiness and works sewage in very plain terms.  Paul says that those good works are lost to him, and that they won’t benefit him in God’s eyes. 

Its not that the works are good in a worldly sense.  They are.  It’s not that they haven’t benefited himself or even others around him, they have.  Rather its that his sin is so large that no amount of civil righteousness or worldly holiness can make up for his sin.  Furthermore his worldly holiness gives only empty rewards of money, home, riches and other things that cannot be taken with him beyond the grave. 

Instead Paul trusts in something better than all the skubalon of our world.  He trusts in Christ, and in his promises.  He happily would have all the skubalon of the world taken from him so that he might gain Christ ⁹ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of his own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— ¹⁰ that he  may know Jesus and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, ¹¹ that by any means possible he may attain the resurrection from the dead.

What about you?  The truth is often times we get distracted by the skubalon of the world.  We are proud of our works, we have pride that looks down on others.  We struggle to do what is right, but tell ourselves that our best effort is good enough.  We get angry at other people for things they do wrong, when we turn around and do the same things ourselves.  We slander and hurt other people’s reputations, and drag their names in the mud. 

And then we boldly declare ourselves righteous to the world.  We talk about the great things we’ve done.  We brag about how we spend our money.  We toot our trumpets to all who will listen about the amazing things that we have done. 

So often we call this Christianity as well.  We have all seen the what would Jesus do bracelets.  We’ve all heard the “Christians are supposed to be better than everyone else, we’re supposed to act better.”  And so often we tell people that we do!  We take pride in our faiths.  We tell others about how good our faith is – Even if it isn’t the truth. 

Dear friends, it is all skubalon.  It is sin.  It stinks.  It kills us.  Count it for what it is, flush it away as it ought to be flushed.  Repent.  Turn aside from you sin.  Trust in Christ, and in his mercy only.  For only in him is their forgiveness.  Become like him, in his death.  Put your sin to death in his body, in his blood and in his mercy and forgiveness. 

Why?  So that you might obtain eternal life.  So that you might reach the reward of heaven.  And dear friends the only way you can put your sin and pride to death is in Christ.  His death on a cross is for you and your forgiveness.  His blood poured out so that you might be forgiven.  You were baptized into that forgiving death.  You were washed in that blood.  You are holy, not by your own actions or works, or by your pride, or your selfishness.  You’re holy in Jesus, and in Jesus alone. 

And so that’s how we live.  That’s how LWML works, that’s how our missions work, we set ourselves aside in faith in Christ and serve our neighbors.  We don’t brag, except in Jesus.  We don’t trumpet ourselves, but we tell all we can about the good work Christ has done in us.  Because, dear friends, when we talk about Christ, we avoid the skubalon. 

In the name of Jesus.  Amen.